Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting is head of education at Stonewall, Britain’s lesbian, gay and bisexual charity, where he leads their flagship Education for All campaign aimed at tackling homophobia and celebrating difference in schools, colleges and universities.

Wes is deputy leader of the Labour group in the London borough of Redbridge and shadows the finance and resources portfolios. Wes was elected in a highly marginal ward in a by-election in 2010 and has since enjoyed a rapid rise in the Labour group, including a stint as shadow cabinet member for children’s services and leisure. He is playing a leading role in the campaign to secure a Labour majority – for the first time in the borough’s history – in 2014 and is responsible for developing the manifesto and programme for administration.

A former national president of the National Union of Students, Wes has a strong interest in education policy and social justice. He joined Stonewall from the Helena Kennedy Foundation, a national education charity that supports disadvantaged students from the further and adult education sectors to access higher education, where he served as chief executive. Wes was an adviser to the Labour party’s shadow cabinet policy review on the creative industries, led by Ivan Lewis, and he is currently a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s strategic advisory committee on widening access and participation in HE.

Wes has contributed to a number of publications, television and radio programmes on a range of issues around education, equality and social mobility, including the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, the Moral Maze, the Times and the Guardian. He is a contributor to the Huffington Post’s UK edition and a former member of the Times Higher Education magazine editorial advisory board.